Misfit Wishing
by blue mood blue
Summary: Everyone wishes at Christmastime - some of those wishes even come true. Blaine wants to grant wishes, but for now he just fixes toys in the North Pole. It's going to take the help of a wish from the past and some misfit friends to find what he's looking for - if that doesn't change along the way. Klaine Christmas AU.
1. Prologue

Misfit Wishing

Prologue

While the wind howled and screeched, wrapping its cold, icy, cutting arms around everything it could touch, a slip of a life was wishing. It held tight to a little tree, no physical form of its own, threatened every second to be swept into the wind and blown out of existence forever.

_Please, _it wished, a tiny, silent voice reaching out to the great, wide world without even the hope of an answer. _Please help me. Please, I want to live. I want the chance to be alive._

_ You can't exist as you were supposed to, _someone else responded, a warm, kind voice. _You were so wanted, and the wish could not be ignored. You exist, but you cannot be as you were meant to be. I cannot change that. It will be finished quickly if you let go – it won't hurt, I promise._

The tiny life held on tighter. It didn't want to die – it had only just started to be, and there was so much more left to live for. It wished with everything it had. It wasn't much, but wishes don't rely on the strength of the one wishing, just the strength of the wish.

_I will try, _the kindly voice finally said, _but it will be a very different kind of living._

_ I just want to live, _the life said.

The stunted tree seemed suddenly to be protected – the wind beat against the invisible obstruction but could do nothing to gain any purchase. The life slipped down to the ground, tired but still holding onto existence.

_This may hurt just a little._

Prickles of pain ran up and down, like the needles of ice that the wind flung, but these stayed. They pinned the life and stretched it into strange new shapes. First was a hand, stiff and cold, hard but somehow yielding. The life opened and closed it – his fingers clinked together when they met. Next came one arm, then another. As his legs began to grow, a single blue eye opened and stared at the impressive sight of the blizzard blowing above him. He smiled with his newly-formed mouth.

"Is this what all life is like?" He examined his hands as he managed to stand by the tiny tree. His skin was hard, and he could sense that it was hollow.

_No, _the voice replied, and it was hard to hear over the sound of the blizzard. _That is called porcelain. It is a different kind of living._

"That's okay," the living, breathing, "porcelain" doll replied. "I'm still here. Thank you…" he hesitated. "I don't know what I should call you."

_One day I will tell you my name. You will have a new wish when we meet then._

"I don't know what I should call me, either."

_You were going to be called Kurt._

"Oh. Then thank you, until we meet again." The porcelain doll named Kurt, the tiny new life who was so different, sat by the twig of tree and waited for the storm to calm, and the kindly voice faded into the wind.

* * *

A/N: So I was watching a Christmas play this weekend and basically got mentally slapped in the face by this idea. So I started planning and it got much more complicated than I was counting on. I'm hoping to get the whole thing done by Christmas, so if you catch me lagging, just harass me or something.

Also, if you like this story, please let me know! I wouldn't normally ask, but it makes me a bit nervous to post something this AU when I'm still pretty new to fanfiction. Thanks for reading!

(Disclaimer: Glee belongs to Ryan Murphy and FOX. This story is purely for entertainment purposes and not profit.)


	2. Wish for Wishing

Chapter One: Wish for Wishing

Wishes are powerful. If you don't think so, then maybe you've never had a wish that meant something incredible to you. Real wishes take up the whole heart when they're made. A real wish is that moment just after you've lowered yourself on one knee, or the second glance your doctor takes when looking at your chart after treatment. A real wish has the potential to change a person forever, and real wishes are granted every day.

Some aren't, of course. Some are best left ignored, or can't be granted in the exact way a person would like. Sometimes, the one making the wish needs the trial more than the satisfaction. And sometimes, as in all things, life simply isn't fair.

Despite an understood and absolute awareness of the tendency of wishes to come with a "results may vary" warning, people have continued extending their deepest desires to the heavens for years. There are birthday-candle wishes and 11:11-wishes, wishes made on good luck charms or hidden in prayers, wishes whispered aloud late at night or never spoken at all. Our story isn't about these wishes - our story is about a very specific type of wishing, the kind that happens when you wish upon a falling star. Well, our story is really about an elf named Blaine, but to understand that, first you have to understand what it means to sing wishes into life.

Wishes on stars are moments of fate. No one can say if it is the wish that causes the star to fall or the falling star that brings forth the wish, but in any case the two are inextricably tied. The stars are very far away, though, and not prone to granting wishes, so it is the wish-song, sung by someone who can hear it, that grants the wish. Blaine could hear it, and he spent long hours of his childhood trying to capture the sound, always humming strange little tunes no matter what else he might be doing.

The North Pole Workshop, where Blaine lived, was also in the business of granting wishes, albeit the form that comes in letters at one particular time of the year. Blaine never heard the other elves singing anything but Christmas carols, though, until he met a small elf named Rachel, who was deceptively loud given her size. She'd heard the wish-song too, and, like Blaine, she wanted nothing more than to have the chance to sing along.

They still had to contribute to the wishes in the letters, and so just like all of the other elves at the workshop, when they were old enough they were given jobs to do. Finding the right job for a North Pole elf was a magical process, so most of the time the system worked to everyone's advantage. Blaine was assigned to repairs while Rachel was placed in the Wrapping Department, because even a magical process can make mistakes sometimes, especially when trying to place an unfamiliar magic.

Blaine was okay with his job on most days – he liked being able to fix things and knowing that people needed him around. Most of the repairs were pretty small, and even though he took a long time to figure out the problem, no one actually expressed any frustration to him. Maybe he wasn't the best-liked elf to ever live in the North Pole, but they put up with him. He was much more tolerated than Rachel, who had a habit of expressing any dissatisfaction loudly and at inappropriate times. The humdrum of everyday life made the song harder to hear at night, though, when he fell into bed exhausted. His thoughts were on other things, like how to convince people to like him and how to make the tools do what they were supposed to the first time. He didn't even notice that he really hadn't been listening for a while.

The day that begins our story hadn't been one of Blaine's best. He was covered in delicious icing and patches of sprinkles, and he couldn't even enjoy the snow that was falling because it was making the icing run into his eyes. Some genius in the confectionery – which was more of a delicious-smelling factory – had put the sprinkles in the icing dispenser, which had gotten jammed on a mass of them. It had taken him all day to get the hunk of decorating supplies unstuck, and then the machine blasted him for good measure. He managed to get most of it off, but there was just enough left to make his clothes sticky and stiff, his hair stick up at odd angles, and his entire walk through the town a complete embarrassment. Santana, a recent transfer to the reindeer barn, had a field day when he passed her. When he showed up at Rachel's door, she made a small sound of dismay and dragged him inside, pushing him forcibly into the shower.

As soon as he was clean and dressed, Rachel was there in front of him, shoving a piece of paper in his face. "I need you to sign this and then bring it around to people."

"Which people?" He took the paper from her. It was another petition for changing the policy regarding changing job assignment. "Rachel, we've tried this before."

"And we will try it again if we have to! This is not a dictatorship, Blaine; they have to listen to us at some point!" Rachel had never had any particular fondness for her line of work. Wrapping was often the most mindless job available; even the toy-making provided more stimulation.

"But I like my job. I know where you're coming from, Rachel, and I'd love to help you, but I don't want to be reassigned." He knew his way around the machines by now; he was comfortable where he was... complacent. "Besides, no one gets assigned to singing. No one even understands when we try to explain."

"I know that, Blaine," she said in that of-course-I-know-that-Blaine-what-do-you-take-me-for tone of voice he'd grown accustomed to after spending so much time with her. "But if we're going to go looking for magical secrets we're going to need a little time off. I don't know about you, but the wrapping department is not okay with that at this time of year. I want to be able to sing for this Christmas." That was typical of Rachel, too.

"I don't think it's going to be that easy. It's a kind of magic - it's probably going to take a really long time to master, assuming that we can." Neither of them had ever actually managed to join the otherworldly song, and if Blaine thought about it, there was nothing to guarantee that they would in the future. Knowing that she would insist on telling him anyway, he decided to ask. "What's so important about this year?"

Rachel sat next to him and gave him puppy eyes. "Promise you won't laugh?" Not really waiting for an answer, she started bouncing. "Well, you know our overseer? The really tall one?"

"You mean Finn?" The unusually tall elf was one of the few things the girl would talk about when Blaine went to visit. "The one who destroyed five industrial-sized rolls of wrapping paper when he directed the workers to load them into the wrong end of the distribution machine? You know that took me two weeks to clean up, right? Wrapping paper confetti everywhere." Finn, an overseer for the wrapping, was another elf who didn't exactly seem to fit his job. In his defense, his original spot with the reindeer hadn't been much better – Dasher, true to his name, had run off and gotten lost for a week when Finn was on his own once. Blaine could only guess that someone thought he would do less damage with a clipboard. So far, no luck.

"Yes, well, he's trying his best. Anyway, he smiled at me today." She was grinning hugely at him, as though he should have caught on by now.

"And…?"

"And… If I had a little magic, maybe I could turn that smile into a kiss?" She blushed and fiddled with the edge of her skirt.

Blaine floundered for a few seconds. "I'm, um, happy for you, Rach, but isn't the point kind of to... help other people with their wishes? I don't think we're supposed to grant our own..."

"Well I don't see why not! It's not like it's a very big wish, anyway, and after all that I've had to put up with up to now… Don't I deserve a little happiness?" She reached out and held his hand. "Don't you? Don't lie to me, Blaine – I know you have wishes for yourself, too."

"Sure, everyone does. But I'm okay."

His friend gave him a searching look. "So you wouldn't ask for a better job? Santana to stop picking on you? Someone to fall in love with?"

He couldn't deny that the idea was appealing. What he wouldn't give for someone to look at him with starry eyes... The only person who'd ever shown interest up to that point was a misguided Rachel a couple of years ago. "Does that make me a bad person?"

"No," she reassured him quickly. "No, of course not. We're allowed to want things for ourselves – every child we make presents for is wishing for things for themselves. It's our entire business to grant wishes, in some way, so why not ours?"

And really, why not theirs? Blaine had never encountered an elf who ever asked something for his or herself – it was always about Christmas, and doing what was best for the children. Then the children forgot or stopped believing and that was the end of the Christmas magic for them. There was never a thank you. So if he and Rachel wanted to give themselves their own thank you – just a small one – was that such a bad thing?

Blaine was soon shaking his head. That wasn't the point. "I don't know, Rachel, that just seems... shady, to me."

"Well, regardless, we're going to need some time off at least," she continued, brushing off her friend's arguments of moral integrity. "Just get people to sign it while they're really frustrated about whatever it is that's broken. Tell them it's a liability waiver or something."

Despite Rachel's questionable methods, Blaine still found himself leaving her house with the petition in tow. She was incredibly hard to say "no" to, mostly because the word didn't seem to exist in her vocabulary. He knew no one was going to sign it - no one was even going to pay attention to a thing like that this close to Christmas - but he would still end up showing it to people and getting a mixture of laughs and concerned, wary looks. Rachel's name was on it, after all, and she had a reputation.

Fate was waiting for Blaine that night on a rooftop, though, and pounced when he wasn't expecting it.

Whatever it was that had fallen on top of him knocked Blaine over face-first into the snow that lined the streets. He barely had time for a muttered "Oof!" before his face was virtually buried. The thing that landed on him wasn't moving, and he squirmed a bit until he finally managed an escape, looking back to see a blonde girl sitting serenely in the snow. "Good evening, Blaine," she said.

"Brittany," Blaine replied, helping the girl up, "you really have to stop jumping off of buildings like that. People will get the wrong impression." He rubbed the back of his neck - work the next day was going to be agony.

"Oh, I know. They think I'm a ninja sent to assassinate Santa Clause." She leaned in a little closer as though imparting a secret. "That's silly, though, because everyone knows ninjas are invisible."

"Right," Blaine said, used to the way Brittany's mind worked and perfectly aware that trying to understand her reasoning would guarantee a headache. Rachel had a theory that the girl had been knocked into the machine that stirred the cotton candy at a young age and gotten her head mixed up along with it. He had no idea where she'd come from; no one seemed to know, and she mostly just drifted around the workshop. He'd decided that she was nice enough upon meeting her after she'd gotten herself stuck on the toy assembly line. She'd thought it was a carnival ride, apparently, and that the dolls on the line were just very tiny people.

Blaine looked around - besides him and Brittany, the streets seemed deserted. Unless she was just jumping at random, Brittany had been aiming to land on top of him. "Was there something that you needed, Brit?"

"No." She was still looking at him closely. After a moment, she clarified as much as Brittany ever clarified anything. "You need something, though. Or someone needs you. Something like that." She looked up briefly, then back at Blaine, who clearly wasn't following. She frowned. "You haven't been listening."

"Listening...?"

"You haven't been; no wonder you're still hanging around. If you had been listening at all you would have heard him - he's being really loud this week."

"Who... What?"

Brittany shook her head in apparent disappointment. "You don't have much time. Go home and listen before you can't hear anymore, or before he can't call out. Otherwise you're going to be sad and mopey forever."

Blaine was bewildered. "I'm not..." He couldn't finish the thought - Brittany gave him such a look that he stopped the protest immediately. It was a pointed glare, and also the first time he'd seen the girl with an expression that hard before. Usually she just looked various degrees of dazed.

"You are sad, Blaine the Elf, even if you won't admit it. Go home and listen!" She stomped off, finished with the conversation.

Blaine went home and did what she instructed; he thought she might have meant the wish-song, though he wasn't aware that she knew about it before. When he tried he couldn't hear anything, though. He stared up at the stars like they had done him a great personal wrong and waited for the song to come like it usually did, but he couldn't hear a single note. Important things he could be doing instead and preparations he could be making for work the next day kept running through his head, and he suddenly felt silly. Frustrated, he gave up after an hour of sitting outside in the snow.

He went to bed that night feeling very empty, and that feeling followed him around the next day and then the next week after that. He brought around the petition like Rachel had asked him to, which was mostly ignored as he could have predicted, and he fixed everything that needed fixing, but the entire time his mind was reeling in a series of questions. Had he lost the connection to the song? Was that just it, then? He'd run out of time and now he'd missed his opportunity? He tried listening every night, but he never heard anything. He always felt so foolish and childish by the time he went back inside, and just a little like he wanted to cry.

He was much quieter than usual, and while people noticed, the first person to say anything was Santana. He'd gone to the barn hoping to find Puck about the petition (entirely unsigned at that point), as he was usually pretty understanding when it came to Rachel's schemes for whatever reason, but evidently he was out training a new reindeer with some kind of weird birthmark on it's nose or something.

Santana took one look at him when he walked into the barn and let out a low whistle. "The heck happened to you?"

Blaine scowled. "I don't know what you mean."

"That right there," she insisted, pointing in his general direction. "You don't make that face. You are physically incapable of doing so. And now, despite having no real interest or investment in your personal life, I have to wonder who broke into your house and murdered your puppy."

Blaine continued to scowl. "I don't have a puppy."

"Is _that_ the reason?"

"No!"

Santana leaned against one of the stall doors, unimpressed but not going anywhere. She raised an eyebrow and waited, and since she was between him and escape, Blaine sighed and gave in. What would it hurt, really?

"I just recently found out that I can't do something that I thought I could do, so now I'm going to be stuck as a repairman my entire life." It had never occurred to him before how awful that prospect could be, but now that it was apparently his only option he felt trapped.

Santana smirked. "Sounds to me like you have a wish."

Blaine sighed. "Doesn't everyone?"

"I know someone who can grant wishes," she continued, ignoring his interjection. "Her rates aren't exactly cheap, but she can do it, whatever it is."

He'd never heard of such a person, but that didn't mean she didn't exist, and Blaine was suddenly very interested in what Santana had to tell him. "Could she... Does she know anything about granting wishes through song?"

Santana's smirk transformed into a full, wide grin. For a second it looked almost predatory, but then she was next to him and looping an arm around his shoulder. He tried not to flinch; he'd never known the girl to be particularly fond of touching people. "Oh yeah, she knows all about that. It's her specialty even, you might say. So you want to sing the wish-song, is that it?"

"Um, yeah... that's it." He'd never heard it mentioned so causally, as though it was actually something that some people could do, and he'd never expected to hear it from Santana, of all people.

"Great, she'll hook you right up, then."

"If you don't mind me asking," Blaine started hesitantly, still practically in a choke-hold by the slightly-taller elf, "who exactly is this person? I've never heard of anyone like that before, and I've lived in the area for a while..."

"Oh, don't worry Blainers, you've heard of her. Unless no one's ever told you about the Ice Witch?"

The Ice Witch, who lived in a cave on the top of the mountain just outside of the North Pole Workshop, was a well-known figure in the town, usually as a warning to young elves against wandering too far. She was incredibly powerful, commanding blizzards and biting winds, and incredibly terrifying. There were stories, generally accepted as fact, that she had no heart. No one in town had seen her because no one who went to visit her came back.

Blaine struggled against Santana's hold and finally broke free. He turned around to gape at her. "_The Witch_? You've _met her_? You can't be serious..."

"Very serious." She looked serious, but he still had a hard time believing her. "The stories about her are hugely exaggerated - a couple of people balked at the price and couldn't pay up, so she had to go and collect, but she's not going to eat you or anything."

"But I can't just..." The Witch. The horrible, evil witch who lived on the mountain. Santana wanted Blaine to talk to a _witch_ about his problems; Blaine had never heard a worse idea.

Santana shrugged. "Look, it's up to you. I'm not going to tell you what to do with your life - you wanna go around as a pathetic repairman until you die, whatever. All I know is that she's the only one around here who can help you; not even the big man in red could answer a wish like that." Blaine was still hesitant. Santana paused for a beat before she continued. "She took care of mine."

He stared at her, trying to determine if she was lying to him, but her face remained even. "You had a wish?" She nodded. "You went to see her and you didn't die?"

She crossed her arms. "Do I _smell_ like rotten flesh to you?"

He didn't know if he could trust the other elf, but like she said, who else was going to be able to help him? "...what was your price?"

"None of your business." She glared at him, and in hindsight it was a pretty personal question. "That's all the help I can give you, so if there isn't something you need, will you please go somewhere else and stop stinking up the barn?" She turned and walked away, and he forgot about the petition completely in his haste to leave.

On his way home, Blaine was deep in thought. He couldn't imagine that it was a good idea to go to the witch, but clearly Santana had made it out alive, so it must be possible. Assuming he could trust her, but she seemed to be telling the truth... He didn't have many options - the petitions never worked, and he thought he might scream at the thought of only barely actuallyliving. The witch was powerful; surely she could offer some kind of solution. And whatever she asked, he would find a way to pay her.

"I want the chance to be alive," he murmured to himself. "Actually alive; not just pretending it."

He would have to leave soon, though, if he hoped to be back in time for Christmas. The mountain wasn't far, but as soon as something broke people would be looking for him. The sooner he could get back, the easier it would be to escape suspicion. Glancing up at the stars as he walked, he decided he was going to leave that night, before he had the chance to talk himself out of it. He would leave a note in case Rachel went looking for him. He could bring her along, he supposed, but there was a chance that she wouldn't want to go, and he couldn't risk her telling someone where he was going - no one was allowed to go calling on the witch, really. He would explain in the note, and if he hadn't gotten back by then, he guessed she could send someone to look for him.

He packed a small bag that night, the window in his room tightly shut. The tiny voice of a doll was wishing, but Blaine didn't hear it because he still wasn't listening.

* * *

A/N: Well hello! ^_^ I was hoping to have this entire story finished by Christmas, but I think it's pretty clear that's not going to happen. I do plan to finish it, though, so if you don't mind reading a Christmas story after Christmas, I'll still be updating.

I really hope someone likes this - it's making me nervous to post something this AU, but I couldn't NOT write it once I'd had the idea. Well anyway, thanks for reading!

(Disclaimer: Glee belongs to Ryan Murphy and FOX. This story is purely for entertainment purposes and not profit.)


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